Randy Newman

Amen, amen, amen.
I'm still amazed at the number of otherwise intelligent people who don't understand the concept of "satire."
All his albums are great and "The Natural" soundtrack is my favorite of all time.
Newman just may be the most underrated artist of our generation.

You have excellent taste in music!  

"....Sun's going down, starting to rain,
Papa, we'll go sailing."

I've got "Little Criminals" in my car cd player for the ride home today.  I love Joe Walsh's slide work on "Can't fool the fat man."

Alucard wrote: Randy Newman : Little Criminals (1977) my favourite RN record, and my favourite RN song : 'Baltimore',gives me the shivers everytime I hear it, the slow piano intro...

Mine too! And yes, the piano intro is the business. Excellent album. The pathos in some of the songs on that album is so heavy.

I also have owned "Sail Away" and "Good Old Boys" since the 1970s, which are every bit as good. 'Mamma Told Me Not To Come' on "12 Songs" is also a favourite of mine and of course very well known, having been covered by THREE DOG NIGHT amongst others (I used to have that LP too, which I also liked).

To this day I regret haivng missed a concert of his in 1978 or thereabouts. I had a ticket for the concert at the Manchester (UK) Apollo if I recall correctly, but had to give it to a friend at the last minute because I had to go somewhere at short notice. Fortunately a local radio station recorded the concert and aired it some time later, and I captured it on cassette, which I think I must still have somewhere. So few people went to that concert that Newman said during the concert: "This town has two first division football teams..."! I.e. "Where is everybody?!" What a shame there was a poor turnout for such a good artist.

Musically Zevon would be closer than Waits or Chapin.  Lyrically I think of Zevon being a lot more macabre whereas Newman is cleverly satirical and mildly sarcastic.  Like Zevon, he has attracted the attention of many of the giants in music and lots of them have guested on his recordings.  I still think Newman is more sophisticated than any of them because he is so versatile and writes intricate orchestral parts behind his music that are amazing to my ears.  I realize it comes down to a matter of taste but he's way, way up there on my list of artists that I'd buy a new album from without hearing a note of it first.
(I also love to listen to Wait's "Heartattack and Vine" and "Small Change" albums.)

Newman's background is definitely more Tin Pan Alley than your typical singer-songwriter....in reading interviews and articles, Mr. Newman purports to dislike rock 'n' roll music immensely - says he doesn't touch the stuff and it shows, since 1981 he's only released two "rock" records while focusing on hammy movie soundtracks and a musical based on Goethe's Faust.  His greatest influences were two famous uncles who supplied Hollywood with a load of its movie soundtracks from the 40s through the 60s.  Randy learned the craft from this uncle and came of age at a time when rock was slipping into the mainstream.  Early on, he couldn't sell his own recordings, but he sure sold a load of his songs....he supplied the music for a top-rated US TV show and Judy Collins, Dusty Springfield, Peggy Lee and Three Dog Night all had hits covering songs from Randy's first album.  Man, Harry Nillson even won a Record of the Year award for a cover album of Newman songs from his first two albums!  His nasaly voice and subdued piano stylings accompanying his often manically depressing though always sharp witted short stories/songs were certainly a hard sell in the rock 'n' roll arena.....luckily, Rolling Stone magazine heavily hyped both 12 Songs and Sail Away and the kids caught on.  The rest is history....pick up ANY Randy Newman record and you're bound to catch on, too.

First of all I have to correct myself.  Joe Walsh's excellent slide guitar work on Little Criminals is on the song of the same name, not "Can't fool the fat man."  I should be flogged for such a mistake!  

Check out Randy's website (google it) and you can read his funny comments about his European tour.  He's very Mark Twain-ish in his observations.  I know he may say he doesn't like rock and roll but he's written some excellent specimens of that genre throughout his career so I'd take that statement from him with a eye out for a sly wink.